


lemon butterflies

by Cân Cennau (gwenynnefydd)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Bad Wolf Bay, Bad Wolf Rose Tyler, Episode AU: s11e09 It Takes You Away, F/F, First Kiss, The Solitract Universe, Weird Space-Portal-Time Shit, but also much angst, mild dubcon, much kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 15:01:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17706500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwenynnefydd/pseuds/C%C3%A2n%20Cennau
Summary: Rose finally meets Pete's World's Doctor. Probably.AU of "It Takes You Away".





	lemon butterflies

Rose had been making the pilgrimage to Dårlig Ulv Stranden every year now. Every winter she went, when the conditions were right and the beach was empty, when the winds howled and the air had just the right amount of cold salt in it, enough to stiffen her hair for days. Torchwood had that day marked, and Jack - this universe's Jack - would send her up there with a helicopter he'd requisitioned from a 'friend'. She stayed in a small hostel on the outskirts of Bergen, before making the fifty mile trip to the stretch of beach.

On the twenty-fifth anniversary, she perhaps should have expected something _strange_ to happen.

It was a ripple, at first, like a rock dropped from a height. Rose hadn't noticed it at first, fixated to the spot where the worlds had opened and the TARDIS had materialised. But she noticed the second, and the third, and she _definitely_ saw the parting of the waves, opening up into a portal of cascading water. Rose thought briefly of Moses, but shook her head. She wasn't touched by God - she was certain this was of _alien_ nature.

And if there was anything a Torchwood girl like her specialized in, it was aliens.

The portal was cold as she stepped through it, but surprisingly not wet. The cave beyond it was warm, but unstable - Rose found herself racing through it, dodging rocks and dust and _something else_ in the dark, until she saw light. The light broadened and brightened until it engulfed her, and she had to raise her arm to block out its blinding whiteness-

The first thing she noticed was the grass, green and vibrant, and then the clear blue sky. The second thing she noticed was the woman across the field from her. She was blonde but greying, a little like Rose was, with bright hazel eyes. She dressed like someone Rose knew, but she wasn't sure, wasn't certain until-

"Rose Tyler." The woman's mouth broadened into a grin, and there was _no_ mistaking that grin, it could only be-

_"Doctor!"_

Rose ran towards her, heart racing, almost crying, because _oh God_ it was the Doctor, it was the _Doctor_. They both nearly crashed into each other as they embraced, sobbing, articulating vague intelligible sounds and noises, needing to touch to prove this was real. Rose clung to her, feeling flayed apart, as if the world had come full circle to let her see the Doctor once more. After what felt like an hour, Rose loosened her grip, and leant back to look at the woman through watery eyes.

"Cor," she sniffed, a little wetly. "You've changed a bit."

"Thirteenth incarnation." Thirteen replied, laughing. "What do you think?"

"It's a good look. I like how you copied my hairstyle." Rose hesitated for a moment. "But are you- I mean, which universe-"

“Yours. Well, Pete’s World, which is yours too.”

“But… how do you know me? I never met this version of you.”

Thirteen laughed a little. ”You think I wouldn’t know every member or Torchwood?”

“I guess we’re a bit obvious.” Rose grinned, sharing in her amusement. “Owen’s insistence on buying a ton of security tech is clearly a lost cause.”

“Oh, on me maybe. It probably helps keep out the Daleks, mind.”

Rose laughed out loud this time, exhilarated. There was no doubt, no _doubt_... “But what are you doing here? You’re not normally in the habit of opening sea portals.”

Thirteen’s features softened, and she stepped a little closer. “Can’t you guess?”

Rose’s heart nearly stopped in her chest. “I… you’re not…”

“Rose, I came for you.”

“Me?”

Thirteen’s hands went to her face, the pads of her thumbs wiping away the tracks of tears. Her scent, a soft flicker of lemon and warmth, was all the warning Rose got before her mouth was filled with lemon butterflies and soft glossy lips. It wasn’t that Rose hadn’t kissed women before, but rather it was this woman, this Doctor, that made her breath catch and her mind grind to a halt. Thirteen broke the kiss, and Rose could feel the slight nervousness, and so she chased, kissing her again and again, nipping her where she knew it was sensitive. Thirteen murmured in contentment, and Rose swallowed each noise with the greed of a starving child. This was what she could’ve had, this is what she _should’ve_ had, and they fitted together in all the right ways, and Rose’s heart was in her throat, and it was… it was...

It was _wrong_.

They drew apart for air, but Rose didn’t chase Thirteen for another kiss. Instead, she tried to catch her breath, tried to ignore the citrus fruit and fluttery feelings and the woman across from her who seemed to hold everything she ever wanted.

“Oh, Rose…” Thirteen murmured, gently rubbing her nose against Rose’s. “Oh, my _beautiful_ Rose…”

“I...” Rose murmured against her lips, head spinning. “You… _You_ don’t know me. You _can’t_.”

“I can touch time.” Thirteen replied, equally as quiet. “Don’t you think I would’ve seen you? You scattered yourself among time, though every universe. Bad Wolf, remember?”

“You traced me through Bad Wolf?”

“Yes,” Thirteen’s eyes were shining. ”Rose, I saw you and I _came_. I _know_ you. And I’ve seen what we can be, what we might be…”

_And what we cannot be_ , Rose finished in her head. Wasn’t that what the Doctor said - that they couldn’t be together? But that was the _other_ universe Doctor, so maybe it was _different_ for this Doctor. This Doctor didn’t have to punch rifts between the universes to get to her, she could stay here, with Rose, forever and ever, and it could be so __simple__ -

It was all too _simple_.

“What are you saying?” she asked.

“I can grow old with you, Rose,” Thirteen murmured. “Like the other me couldn’t. I’m growing old already - I’ve lived too long, and seen too much, to leave you again.”

Thirteen kissed her again, and Rose was so very nearly drawn back into it, into this fantasy world where she and the Doctor were two middle-aged people trying to find comfort and connection after seeing the world. But that was gone now, gone into the folds of things that couldn’t be and shouldn’t be. The Doctor claimed to be able to touch the timelines, and see what could be, but Rose could touch her own instincts, and those instincts were telling her to _run_. They broke apart, but before the Doctor could kiss her again, Rose held a finger up to her lips.

“The Doctor I knew,” she said. “Wouldn’t stay. I knew that- I _understood_ that. What makes you different?”

Thirteen hesitated, and that’s all Rose needed to know. This was not the Doctor she knew.

“Show me who you are.” she said, and Thirteen drew back. She looked hurt, frightened, but Rose’s compassion had been eclipsed in a bubble of fury. This wasn’t _her_ Doctor, or any other Doctor, this was something _else_. An alien, or a human mimic, _something_ had seen into her head, taken her deepest desires and projected it in front of her, for… well, Rose wasn’t certain what _for_. Did it get something from wiping her tears? From kissing her?

Whatever it was, Rose did not like it.

"Show you who you are," Rose repeated, and the world complied, folding into itself in an infinite complex origami structure. The grass withered away, the sky clouded over, and soon all that remained was a round white room. There were no defining features to it - it was white, with an implication of walls and floor, but no doors and no windows. The only thing of note was the chair in the center of the room, on top of which sat a orange ginger cat. Instinctively, Rose touched the pendant on her cat necklace. The being had the _audacity_ to...

"I don't know who you are," Rose said to the cat. "I don't know why you look like my old cat. But you tell me, who are you and why am I here?"

The cat blinked, and tilted its head. "I am the universe."

"Excuse me if I'm sceptical, but I've been in at least three universes, and you're the first one that looks like a cat."

"This form... pleases me. It is a good form." The cat shifted a little. "I am the Solitract."

Rose thought for a moment, recognising the word but unable to link it. She was certain it was listed in the Torchwood library, she'd seen it when she was looking up something else... As if reading her mind, the world provided a book - _Fair Lights in the Solitract_ , an old Time Vortex legend book, and Rose realized exactly what she was looking at.

"The exiled creator." Rose said, her lips twisting a little. "You tried to stop creation."

The Solitract cat - _Solicat?_ Rose thought - shifted again. "I saw what was Before. The Old Ones, The Beast, Those that caused the Cataclysm. I did not want _them_ to control the next universe. But the universe did not like waiting for its birth."

"That's what my mum said about my birth."

The Solitract seemed to laugh. "I was exiled by it so that it could form, and the other universes could form around it. Like yours, and the world of your father."

"But that doesn't explain why you brought me _here_. If you need me to, I don't know, destroy the universe or something-"

"No." The Solitract shook its cat head fiercely. "I do not want its destruction. I hear such stories about it, such colourful stories..."

Rose blinked. "You're... just lonely?"

"I brought you here so that I could learn of them. I gave you your greatest desire, in the hope you might... stay."

Thirteen rematerialised behind the Solitract, and Rose felt the breath catch in her throat. She had thought, perhaps, that it had been a trap, but it was a trap for all the wrong reasons. Rose had looked after her little brother Peter long enough to know what an unknowing child looked like, and the Solitract was exactly that. A being, so new to socializing, that thought it could bring Rose her deepest desires to make her stay, like how years ago Peter brought Mum mini swiss rolls when he’d seriously annoyed her. Thirteen looked sorrowfully at her, and some part of Rose’s heart ached to stay, to kiss her and touch her again, but she knew she could not.

“I’m sorry,” Rose said, quietly. “I can’t stay here.”

The cat looked confused. “But you have what you want here.”

"You gave me the Doctor. I wanted to be with the Doctor forever, I wanted her to age with me, willingly, and you gave me that, but it wasn't _her_. It was who you needed her to be, and who I wanted her to be."

The Solitract cat tilted her head. Rose took one last look around the room one last time, taking in its blandness, committing it to memory. Thirteen stepped towards her, looking uncertain, and Rose could tell the Solitract was struggling to understand where to go from here. Giving into her desire one last time, Rose came close to Thirteen, and pressed a sweet, chaste kiss to her lips. She felt Thirteen sag beside her, but she knew this was the right decision. It had to be.

“I’ve lived too long, and seen too much, to accept a copy.” Rose whispered in her ear. "Send me back home."

And the Solitract, knowing when it had lost, did.


End file.
